Dennis R. Schrader

Dennis R. Schrader has spent more than three decades doing the hard work of preparedness, recovery, and institutional transformation — at the hospital, state, and federal levels.

He served as Deputy Administrator of the National Preparedness Directorate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after being confirmed by the United States Senate in 2007, overseeing the strategy, policy, and planning guidance to build the nation’s prevention, protection, and recovery capabilities for all-hazards scenarios — including acts of terrorism.

Earlier, as Maryland’s first Director of Homeland Security under Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., he established the office from scratch, stood up one of the nation’s first state information-sharing Fusion Centers, and advanced public-safety communications and information-sharing across the state.

For 16 years he was part of the executive team at the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) — as Director of Operations and Vice President of Facilities Management and of Project Planning and Development — that transformed a nearly bankrupt state hospital into a nationally recognized institution. That turnaround is the story he tells in The Maryland Phoenix.

He began his career as a manufacturing supervisor in the auto industry before serving as a U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps officer with deployments to Guam and Diego Garcia and tours in Sicily and at Bethesda Naval Hospital, retiring with the rank of Captain. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., he holds a B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering and is a licensed professional engineer.